Ab Aeterno
by carved in the sand
Summary: "We've got a lifetime to watch the sun rise." - AU/Multiships
1. i am still learning

**A/N: **_THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE LONGEST ONE SHOT I HAVE EVER WROTE. OVER 14K WORDS. Gosh gosh _gosh_ I wanted to make this fic so bad because an AU with a SasuSaku kid who's surly, sarcastic, angsty, with lots of hair in her face to hide the forehead would slay me. Officially a series of one shots, you guys! Remember to read and review._

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**ancora imparo****  
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"You said you didn't know anything about me. There's a lot, honestly. So I have to start from the beginning. Not when I was born, but when everything changed. For the worst.

I didn't have a shitty life, no matter what anyone says - no matter what _I_ say when I get bitter enough (because I have too many moments when I think that the world exists just for the sake of cornering me). A lot of shitty things happened. Sometimes it's my own fault, being hotheaded and stupid, but other times it's shoved into my face and I have to learn to breath around it. But I did not choke. Not once.

Grief can consume you easily if you let it. It took me a long time to learn that."

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"You ready to do this?"

"Don't really know."

Tetsuya Hyuuga scratched at her chin thoughtfully, looking too much like her father staring down a particularly large pile of paper work. There was a particularly sad look to her pale eyes that felt too much like pity to be ignore. "It's okay to leave everything be for a while. You've got enough of your stuff at the house. There's nothing that we need to get right _now_," she said as they stood in front of the apartment's door with heavy apprehension. Her arm was slung over Masa's shoulder protectively. "These things are a _process_, you know. They take time."

The wind blew across them, brittle and cold and unrelenting. It looked like autumn too; the greenery around Konoha was beginning to fade into auburns and vermilions, lush with the breeze that always swayed them from their branches. She felt very cold, colder than any wind could make her, thinking about how how the Earth continued to shift into it's seasons when _her_ world had twisted painfully out of it's axis.

Masa was still stuck at the very end of summer, almost too cold to wear shorts even if she wore them anyway because they were easier to run in, with the lake still warm enough to swim in, and her favorite popsicles still hidden inside the freezer.

Yet this morning, she looked out her new bedroom's window to see that even nature was leaving her behind. So at five thirty in the morning, Masa had urged the older girl to take her to her old home to collect the rest of the things that she didn't want to be sold.

Masa sighed, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. "It's okay, Aniki," she muttered. "I'll be fine."

"Then I'll trust you But if you wanna leave and do this another day, then just say the word," Tetsuya said, fishing into her flak jacket's pocket very reluctantly to retrieve a small, silver key. "Here you go, kid."

The pink haired girl gripped the silver key very, very hard in her hand, looked down at it as she unlocked the door for them and remembered how her father's hand looked holding it while he unlocked the front door, balancing groceries in both hands because he wouldn't let her carry anything.

She bit the inside of her cheek very hard.

They walked inside, slow, tentative steps, as if to keep from disturbing the spirits that lay inside. Logic spoke to her and said that this wasn't where their bodies had died. This was where they had _lived_; This was where they made breakfast in the morning and made her read when she wanted to go outside.

It's only been a week and a half. Everything still sat where she'd left it the night Naruto and Hinata helped her pack some clothes to take her to their house. The medical scroll that fell from the coffee table still laid on the floor from when she'd bumped into it, trying to grab the blanket off of the couch. Masa stepped forward and picked it up, gripping it in her hand. She looked at the couch and pictured her mother reading away with a cup of too-sweet tea while her father laid out with his feet on the table resting with his eyes closed.

Their voices echoed in her head, loud and clear.

Masa blinked away the picture and placed the scroll onto the table. It was still too soon for her to be acting like everything was unfamiliar to her. All the ghosts she envisioned to creep out and attack her were trapped inside her head.

But ghosts didn't settle like dust, couldn't be rustled up and blown away into visible puffs into the air. It was still too soon for there to be anything to clean on the coffee table and bookcase. It was too soon for her to feel as if she was a stranger to this place, treading on a floor that laid the dead who tried to rest.

It was too soon to have these thoughts inside her.

"Stay here. I'll be a few minutes," Masa murmured, walking through the living room and into the hallway as bravely as she dared.

Regardless of whatever she could whisper to herself, she knew this home belonged to a family that wasn't here anymore. Did that make her a ghost too? Or just a little girl trying to chase after them?

Her first stop was her parent's room. She looked for only a moment until she found the chukoto laying on top of the bed's side table, next to a military tactics book and a lamp. She grabbed it, holding the weight inside of her palm for walking to the other side of the bed.

Masa crouched onto her knees with sharp eyes as she surveyed the underside of the bed frame, looking for her mother's jewelry box until she a flash of silver caught her attention. She reached out for the metallic box, sliding it out from under the bed and in front of her knees. Masa sat up as she opened it, looking through the array of rings and earrings and bracelets until her hands found the small, gold clasp.

The necklace had a long, thin chain with a gold lotus in full bloom imprinted onto it and pink petals. She slipped it over her head, reaching behind her head to slip her ponytail over the clasp to let it settle on the bare skin of her neck. She sighed, hand clenching into her hair for a quiet second before slipping the rest of the necklace under the high collar of her shirt.

She grabbed the jewelry box as she stood, setting it onto the bed with the sword. She reached for the other side table and snatched her mother's gloves up before stuffing them into her pockets.

Masa breathed, three times, tasting the memory of her parents' skin filled throughout the room, skin rotting underneath layers and layers of dirt, before catching her reflection in the vanity mirror. She walked up, took a seat in front of the mirror and looked down at all the half used cosmetics her mother rarely touched over the years. The sweet smelling perfumes hit her in the stomach forcefully. The pink haired girl in the reflection suddenly looked looked too much like her mother to handle.

She grabbed the pair of trimming scissors in her hands. She flexed them between her fingers a few times. She grasped onto the back of her pony tail, pulling it taut, and setting the metal shears at the back of her neck.

She didn't hear the strands of hair fall onto the carpet.

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"I look like my Okasan. Everyone in the village says I could pass for her twin if I didn't have Otousan's eyes.

The way they say it still bothers me.

They expect me to act like her too, you know? Kind to a fault. Honest. So much love in her. I've always been more like my father, no matter how many people like to point out otherwise. I have _his_ name, _his_ skills, _his_ clan's symbol on my back. It's so much more than the eyes. It's so much more than blood flowing through my vein that corresponds to fifty percent of his DNA makeup. I have his chakra affinity for lightning. I have his bony hands. I have his ears. I even have his awkward smile. You know, when people almost never smile, but when they do it looks sort of creepy and reminds them of a serial killer? That sort of smile. It looked better on him, if we're going to be honest. We both know.

So many people resent me for it. Even you did, once. I don't fault you for it. These eyes have saved your life more than once. People are intimidated when they realize that I will be more like him than I will ever be like her. That I'll do the things he did. (Even though I never could. Konoha is home.)

There are so many parts of me that just..._belong_ to him. And sometimes, when people look at me, I think they try and pick out everything Haruno about me just I wouldn't be Uchiha."

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The Hokage sat in his office, scarfing down ramen and messing with his goddaughter.

The usual.

"How do you like Team Twelve?" Naruto asked, smirking at her. She had the sudden urge to poke him in the eye with her chopsticks, but then didn't, because she knew for a fact he wasn't above tossing her out the window.

"I got Sakumo. He taught me how to walk up trees while we waited for our sensei for our first day of training. But I think I should start writing the letter to Nara's mom when I strangle him to death," Masa said in a conversational voice. She ran a hand through her barely-there pink hair as she looked at her ramen despairingly before holding it out for her godfather. He took it with a thankful smile before finishing it off for her. "Maybe I shouldn't even _leave_ a letter. His mom might find me that way. I'll just leave his body somewhere nice and then leave the village."

Nara Shikachi was a tall, skinny, dark haired boy with droopy teal eyes always drawn into some kind of frown and a high, nasally voice that grated on her nerves. He had a Suna tan, very much like his mother. He wore his hair up into a high, long pony tail that she'd tugged on very hard when she'd left for training that day.

"If you ever became a missing-nin, your dad would beat the shit out of me in the after life," Naruto told her reproachfully, swallowing and pointing his chopsticks at her accusingly. Then a very thoughtful look overcame his face. "Actually, your mom would go first. Then your dad. Then they'd toss me into a pit of fire together."

"Oh, come on! If Otousan could do it, so could I!"

"I wouldn't even send hunter-nin. I'd sniff you out and drag you back myself."

"Whatever, Ojisan. Give me a couple decades and the only thing you'll be dragging it your feet to the hospital," she huffed, flicking her head and tossing her hair back. Her smirk was small and strained.

The two sat behind the Hokage's desk, piled with several different stacks of paperwork and unwashed coffee mugs, taking a snack break. He sat in his office chair, and she in her little stool that was kept tucked in the corner of the room. Usually, the pink haired girl burst into his office while Shikamaru wasn't around to hound his ass to keep working with two to-go containers of Ichikiru's.

It was a chicken ramen kind of day, which usually meant business. She'd even locked the door and put a sealing jutsu on the door so they wouldn't be interrupted.

"Keep dreaming, brat. What the hell happened with Nara anyway?" Naruto prompted, clapping her on the back after he'd set down his empty food container.

Masa deflated before everything started tumbling out of her lips.

"He groaned out loud when the teacher called his name to be on our team, right? Everyone _laughed_! As if they don't make fun of me enough! Then when Konohamaru-sensei dragged us out for training, we had to each go one on one with him. Show skills and whatever. Sakumo stole his headband and Nara caught him in his Kagemane jutsu. All I did was eat dirt," Masa hissed, crossing her arms and looking away from her godfather's gaze. Her eyes stung repeating the memory. The scorn in her black eyes scorned with an almost-hate that she was too young to hold in her hands fully. "So I pulled out my Sharingan flipped him onto his back. Then Nara said I was only do something worthwhile with my bloodline limit."

Naruto laughed, and he saw him shaking in laughter so hard, wiping at his face. "As if! He's probably just jealous because of it! You knocked down a jonin, even if he was going easy on you guys," he said amiably, leaning into his desk chair and folding his hands behind his head. "You've already proved that you're a great ninja because you worked at it."

"But I had to do it with my Sharingan!"

"It doesn't make you any less of a ninja."

"Not when I can't do anything _without_ it!"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You know some people say that I wouldn't be a kage if I didn't have the Kyuubi's chakra helping me out? That might be true, but that doesn't change the fact that I kick ass," he said, shrugging a little. She physically paused, breathing slower. Naruto rarely talked about the demon trapped inside of him. "It took training to even be able to use a _little _it, just like you had to train your Sharingan to use it."

Masa sighed, bringing her knees up onto the stool and wrapping her arms around them. "That doesn't count, _Hokage-sama_," she muttered sarcastically. Naruto reached over and poked her in the middle of the forehead with two fingers, watching her burrow her face into her knees.

"It does. You aren't ashamed of your eyes, are you?" Naruto intoned, ruffling her half-buzzed pink hair until she slapped his hand away. She jumped up immediately, fire in her eyes.

"I am not ashamed of _anything_ Otousan gave me!"

"Good. Take those babies out and fuck anyone up who tries to talk shit," the blonde said brightly, flashing a perfect row of teeth. "In _fact _- you know what you should do the next time you go for team training?"

"What?" Masa asked, the sound of her pouting coming loud and clear through her face pressed into her knees.

"Put him under a nasty genjutsu the next time you go for training."

"Will Konohamaru-sensei get mad?"

"Nah. He'll probably laugh at Nara for a while before doing anything."

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"Otousan was a traitor to the village, a long time before I was born. You know the stories. I mean, it's not something to be proud of, but that was his choice to make.

It's funny, because Otousan beat all these super powerful guys, but he said lot of them happened because of coincidence. One of them literally blew himself up when they came to a draw. There are so many stories that I still haven't _told_ you yet! But anyway, yeah. Missing-nin. The one fight that he said that was the most important to him was with my uncle - my real uncle, not Naruto-ojisan. Otousan's big brother. I asked him why he didn't just have his team help him fight, or even Okasan and Naruto-oji. They all just stayed in the background and let him go after someone they knew was incredibly strong. He said that it was a matter of pride. That's what I learned from Uchiha through old history books and folk tales as bedtime stories. They were prideful. Pride was very important to this clan, when they stepped down from a role of power in the world to form a village of peace and when their faces were spat on time after time. They were willing to risk a _war_ for the sake of pride.

For a long time, pride and hatred were the only things that Otousan had. Now I know those things can't sustain you - Okasan taught me _that_.

He never regret anything. He just made peace with the past, his team, his brother, and moved on. The past was in so many tatters, there was nothing left to cling onto. He built a new life, worked to build a new name to the meaning Uchiha.

_That's_ pride. And I respect that too. More than anything."

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"I hate Nara so much."

"Come on. You broke the guy's arm."

"He shoved dirt into my eyes _twice_!"

Sakumo and Masa walked through the streets of Konoha, beat up and dirtied. Masa pressed her palms into her still-watering, raw-rubbed eyes as everything in front of her blurred together. Hatake Sakumo moved stiffly, sporting several ash burns courtesy of their sensei's "agility training" that he hadn't taken seriously enough. Both had slightly bitter expressions from the day's events.

Hatake Sakumo was a rather short, pale boy with blue-grey eyes and shock of white hair that was always falling into his eyes that made him look tired all the time. He was abnormally skinny, and he could suck in his stomach to see his ribs easily. He was probably the most laid back person she'd ever known - always listening in a conversation, reacting rarely, and always taking naps whenever he could. He had a low voice that could get anyone's attention with a single word, and a boyish grin.

Most people thought he was meek little thing until he started making hand seals. He took up the occupation of being her favorite person in the world - when he wasn't being a badass.

"I don't care," Masa pouted, blinking away more tears that fell as she opened her eyes once more. "Tomorrow, I'm gonna break his other arm. I might rip it off and hang it on my bedroom wall."

"The Hokage probably isn't into kid's limbs being used as decoration in his house," Sakumo said with a yawn, and then flinching at the shift of the almost unsightly burn at his jaw. "But hey, go for it. I'll be rooting for you. The bastard tried correcting my stance for taijutsu because of _the openings my height allows_."

"Arrogant little fuck," she muttered. Sakumo was a little on the short side, just at eye level with her, but his taijutsu was flawless like the rest of his skills. He could destroy genin twice his size. "You could _so_ kick his ass in a fight. I'd pay to see that. You should get him in a ninjutsu fight tomorrow for training."

"Nah. He'd probably get me with his Shadow Possession bullshit and get me to punch myself in the dick."

"Wouldn't that hurt him too?"

"Nope. He doesn't have one."

Masa guffawed loudly, fist bumping with her friend and blinking away the rest of the dirt-tears out of her eyes. The sun set just overhead of the Hokage mountain, spilling orange and pink all over the clouds and buildings and roads to make everything glow. She breathed in the summer air, feeling perfect and happy and very at peace with the world.

"Aww, look at the little Uchiha with her friend."

She paused suddenly, Sakumo following suit as they looked over her shoulder towards the owners of the words. Masa sneered as the two chuunin grinned at her, looking gleeful as they stood outside the dango stand.

"Oh, she looks a little sad. Why are you crying? Sad about your dad?" the second one prompted, dark eyes looking hard and mean. Masa swallowed hard. "I'd be too. Just being related to him is a travesty."

"Sorry for your blood, little Uchiha."

The pink haired girl turned around fully to meet their gazes, hand twitching and aching to feel something metal in her hand. Her skin burned with heat, anger and embarrassment and exhaustion beyond comprehension because there was no more decency, nowhere she could be confronted away from the gaze of the people who mattered. "You know why you know my name and I don't know your's? Because you're _nobodies_," she spat, looking them up and down with a questioning gaze. Their gazes turned from gleeful to vicious. "Go find a C-rank mission to fuck up, losers."

"You ought to learn how to respect your superiors," one of them grunted maliciously, stepping forward menacingly. Masa raised a brow at him, holding back a laugh as her left hand found the hilt of her sword behind her back. "Should I show you now?"

When she shifted to unsheath her sword, Sakumo's hand clamped down on her left shoulder - hard enough to keep her arm from moving.

She whirled around to glare at him, the hard, unreadable look taking over his face. "They aren't worth the effort," Sakumo said. There was a glint in his eye she did not like. "Walk away."

Masa shrugged off his hand with a hard shrug. A thousand different thoughts flickered through her head when his not-quite-blue eyes focused too intensely on her - _what are you trying to do?_ But instead, she stayed silent and took a deep, steadying breath, rubbing the tear stains away from her face. "Head home. I'll see you in the morning, Sakumo," she said smoothly.

The sound of her sword sliding out from its holster rang out, sharp and metallic.

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"Everyone speculates on the the Second Coming of the Sannin. (Remember when the three of us did a week after we first became a team? And you were about to punch Sakumo because he said Sasuke could have kicked Naruto's ass?)

Sometimes I think that Naruto-ojisan was the strongest, because he's Hokage and the Hokage is always the most powerful, like the way autumn comes after summer, the way the expiration date on milk cartons are _absolute_. But then I hear the stories of Otousan taking on all the kages at once when he was only _sixteen_ and I think that there is no man in the world that can compare.

But when I hear Baa-chan talking about Okasan like a daughter she wished she could claim - the weakest link turning into the chain that clasped them all together - I understand strength. I understand much better now. I hope someone asks me those questions again one day.

When they were all genin, the most advanced jutsu she knew was Academy level bullshit. It was okay for a while, with her boys there to protect her. But then my father went away, and Naruto-ojisan went away, so Okasan decided they needed protecting too. She went to Baa-chan for help. She said always said Okasan wanted to be trained very badly. It showed in her work ethic. There was nothing she would not read that Baa-chan threw her way. There were no poisons that she could not create, could not extract. Then she learned to turn the most insignificant thing about her into a weapon, destroy mountains with her little finger. She fought for all the strength she had. There was no bloodline limit to control, no jinchuuriki to tame, no power up to be used for her own gain. _Nothing_.

There was nothing, and she turned it into everything.

Okasan had a gift for turning nothing into everything. She did it when Otousan filled up the last empty space of Team Seven after the war, did it when they fell in love, did it with the hospital when village started healing itself and the ANBU Medical Division and the special kunoichi classes that teach girls how to hide senbon in their hair instead of flower arranging. There is so much she has done, turning the drive of a girl into one of the most famous women in shinobi history. There is no one else I adore more than her. There is no one else who I will idolize as much as her.

The way I see it is this: people will talk in hushed corners about Uchiha Sasuke, and they will cheer for Uzumaki Naruto. But they do _both_ for Haruno Sakura."

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Masa huffed heavily, the small pony tail holding up her bangs at the crown of her head swaying in the winter breeze as she clenched her cramping fingers.

"Again," she called out. "One last time."

"You should really take a rest."

"One last time, Kakashi-ojisan. Please," she huffed out, overlooking the lake before her. Smoke still scattered into the air before her, half-there and half-not, floating in ephemeral gasps of air. "I can make it perfect. I know I can."

"Tousan, she's gonna pass out."

"I will _not_!" Masa shrieked, pulling out a kunai and tossing it in Sakumo's direction. He tilted his head to the left by a couple of inches and let it sink into the wood beside him. He yawned, scratching his head. The sight of him made her blood boil, the perfectly little boy doing all the perfect ninjutsu with his three fucking chakra natures. "I didn't say _shit_ when you burned your goddamn hand trying to learn chidori! And I didn't even ask for you to come!"

"Why are you getting so defensive?"

"Why won't you _stay over there_?"

"Calm down," Kakashi said, clapping her on the back and giving her a sharp look through his black eye and Sharingan that spun lazily. "You know he's right."

"I. Am. Fine. I am _fine_," Masa breathed angrily through grit molars, closing her eyes and focusing on regulating her breathing to make herself sound more convincing. "One more time. _Please_."

They stood before the too cold lake a kilometer outside of Konoha's border, in the unfriendly winter air that nipped at any and all exposed skin. Snow did not fall on Fire Country yet, but it was close - she could taste it in the sharpness of the air whenever she breathed through her mouth too hard, lungs shutting down against the almost physical frost.

It was perfect weather for her to be spewing fire everywhere.

She wanted to work on a few new katon and asked Kakashi to take her out for the day to practice by the lake. Sakumo had decided to come along just for the hell of it, switching off with his father to quell the flames that Masa lit up at the very edges of the treeline with a suiton. They'd spent the better part of an afternoon trying to keep giant fireballs the like from burning down the forest. A few times, she shot giant fire sparks in the air when she got too bored.

She'd been working on a single technique for an hour and a half with very poor results.

"You still don't bring your hand from the Snake seal into the Tiger seal cleanly. Your little finger falls out of place. It's messing with the chakra expenditure," Kakashi relented, taking a few steps back and letting his hands slip into the snake seal. "Focus on making the seals correctly for a moment."

Masa nodded sharply, looking down at her hands as she mimicked sixteen seals slowly, watching her fingers shift into place just right. Her pinky had always been sloppy in shifting into seals. She did it a few times over, looking intently at her hands to correct any mistakes. She did this slowly, then faster, attempting to focus on every single movement until she perfected it.

There was a bit of obsessiveness that had been eating at her today, but she couldn't help it. She didn't want to fail _here_ of all places.

She remembered very well the summers she'd spent with her parents here; her mother shoving her father into the lake before he dragged her by the ankle down with her, their out of breath laughter that ringing through her ears, the huge waves that her mother would splash onto her, and the sound of her own voice echoing under underwater through the bubbles.

This was the lake where she'd learned one of her clan's katon for the first time, eight years old and spilling an enormous fireball from her lips. This was where she'd practiced ever since. Except she didn't come in summer anymore.

Winter was less familiar, with memories she could settle into a home she did not live in anymore. Memories she could settle somewhere else.

So in winter, she came, practiced and innovated and invented while trying not to burn down anything important.

Masa breathed in one last time before forming the seals in rapid fire succession with more careful movements and ending int he Tiger seal, fingers stretched out and cramping painfully. The chakra melted inside of her body made her feel feverish. She breathed out through her mouth and watched the fire flex, grow out to the expanse of the lake. Two dragons formed and twisted into the air as they grew to expand high above the water. They burned brightly, orange and red and white dancing around one another as they shot towards the treeline. They burned hot and bright, illuminating the icy field with the colors of the sun.

Every muscle in her body sang.

And as she watched them surge forwards with a lump in her throat, a great wave twisted up from the lake, icy cold and sizzling into air as it consumed the dragons into steam and smoke.

She nodded unconsciously, watching the wisps of air faded into nothing. "I've been trying to get the right seal combination for two months," Masa gasped out, walking away from the lake's edge and trying to stand as straight as possible. She saw Kakashi stare into the lake with muted surprise and Sakumo sputtering shock. Masa managed a bit of bravado in her voice. "Pick your face off the ground, boys."

"You're worse than your mother," Kakashi said very blatantly, flicking the pony tail on top of her head as he covered his Sharingan with his forehead protector and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Masa stared at him with the eyes of a very young child looking everywhere for any ounce of her parents she could find left in the world.

He merely looked at her with the age-old eye crinkle before waving over Sakumo to them. Kakashi reached out and tossed his other arm around his son's shoulders as he came forward. "You should really teach me that later," Sakumo said.

"Maybe. If you buy me a couple bowls of beef ramen," Masa replied haughtily, leaning into his frame. "Kinda starved over here."

"Hokage-sama's got you messed _up_," Sakumo said, shivering at the cold and giving her a frown filled to the brim with mock concern. "This addiction isn't healthy, Masa."

"Neither is hanging out with Hatake's for long periods of time."

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"My parent's team wasn't always good at being a team. They actually sucked in the beginning. Which is so hard to believe, right? I can never get past Kakashi-ojisan's stories because I hero-worship them all so _much_.

(So do you. I know for a fact that you were arguing with Akimichi a couple weeks ago about how Naruto-ojisan was a better choice of Hokage than Kakashi-ojisan. Which is totally fucking true.)

After they took their Chuunin exams and the whole mess with Suna's invasion, two of them left, Kakashi-ojisan went off on a bunch of super long and dangerous missions, and Okasan ignored it all to train under Baa-chan in Konoha to get stronger, which is I think she's the smartest of them. Then when Naruto-ojisan came back, Sai-ojisan came in the picture to fill in as a replacement. Except he became more than a fill in. Then they were all thrown back together for the war with Otousan in a fight no one remembers because of the Infinite Tsukiyomi. All anyone saw when they came out was Team Seven looking like they wanted to find somewhere to sleep for a week.

When they came back to Konoha, and my father was reinstated by as a shinobi, they became a team again. Sai-ojisan talked a lot about how he would never be on their level, which is bullshit for the Head of ANBU to say. _To this day_, people call them the second coming of the Sannin. Even Baa-chan. So it's hard to believe that they used to be terrible.

They weren't just a team though. They were _family_. Still are. So were the Sannin, before things fell apart. It's something that goes much farther than flesh and blood. That's what makes a team strong.

That's what made us so strong, I think."

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"Jaguars aren't supposed to be this _fast_!"

"I knew this place was fucked up! I knew it!"

Team Twelve sprinted through northern Earth Country's rain forest just north of Iwagakure with all the speed their bodies could possess, jumping over overgrown tree roots and ducking under too-low branches. The hot, humid air that hadn't let up with nightfall pulsed thick in their lungs as they made their way through the jungle.

While the sun had long since set, the sky black and shining white light with stars. Shikachi and Masa had been fast asleep, leaving the watch to Sakumo, and as he half dozed away, a very large and angry looking beast in all-black decided to make a midnight snack out of the three of them. They'd just barely woken up and scrambled away in time. And they'd figured out very fast that this creature could get as fast as any ninja.

They couldn't get higher, because the branches on the trees were too slippery, so they were forced to stay on the ground. The beast managed managed to resist

"It doesn't matter!" Shikachi hissed, pulling the tessen from his back, cursing when he almost tripped up. He growled unintelligibly before barking orders again. "Masa, check if there are any teams near us!"

Masa's eyes flickered into red, scouting the jungle for chakra signatures. "Two chakra signatures three kilometers west of here!"

"Bastards using their summons for scouting out prey! Typical!" Shikachi hissed, sprinting with his oversized fan clasped clumsily in his hands, ready to attack. "For now, we'll handle this thing! I'll knock it back as far as I can! Sakumo, use a clone to hit it from above with chidori!"

"You two can take this thing out by yourselves!" Sakumo shouted back, searching into the treeline above for some invisible enemy. He pulled out two kunai from his pouch, voice hard and vicious. "I should go for the bastards who sicked this thing on us!"

"There's too much that could go wrong! We'll confront them as a team _later_! Right now, we're just going to get rid of this thing!" Shikachi said, shifting his tessen into his right hand and falling back from his teammates."On my mark, Sakumo!"

The white haired boy huffed angrily, but shifted his hands into the kage bunshin, a clone bursting to life beside him. "Alright!"

Shikachi whirled around, flinging his fan open all the way with powerful, slicing wind, forcing the jaguar backwards. Masa gripped one hand on her forehead over her bangs, keeping them out of her face as the winds blew her clothes and hair viciously. Sakumo's clone jumped onto a tree branch, it's hand flickering to life with stark blue lightning and the sound of mad chirping.

The clone waited a moment as the wind died away, a vicious growl resounding through the forest. It flickered into the dark, lighting it's way until it connected with another dark figure, a dying roar crying out before everything went silent.

"It's dead," the Sakumo beside them murmured.

Shikachi huffed, folding away his fan and attaching it back onto him. He rubbed at the skin on his forehead long and hard, glaring into the hazy black. "Masa, can you see anywhere that we can set up camp?"

"Nothing too promising," the pink haired girl muttered, unsheathing her sword from it's holster, looking around the jungle with vicious, blood-red eyes. "There's a river half a kilometer ahead. I think we passed it earlier. We could reconvene there...but we have to throw out the trash first."

"What?"

"What trash?"

"The trash. I can smell it from here."

Masa jerked to the left with a sharp twist of her body, the blade of her chukoto flashing and crackling with lightning chakra. She stabbed it straight into a tree, which shifted and writhed to reveal the body of a skinny, blonde boy with a Kumo forehead protector. Her blade was stuck deeply into his right shoulder, gasps of pain growing harsher as he continued to writhe against the restraint. The tanto in his right hand fell to the ground easily with a clang. She reached out, down the neck of his shirt, and snatched a small necklace with a silver key hanging from it. She ripped it away from his throat and hung it in front of his face.

"Genjutsu?" Sakumo hissed, pulling out a kunai and stomping towards the Kumo-nin. Sakumo followed, groaning loudly. "I almost _pissed my pants_ over a stupid fucking genjutsu?"

"Powerful illusion for such a tiny thing. I should have had my Sharingan activated the whole time," Masa growled, digging the sword deeper into the boy, the wood behind him splitting and giving way to the metal. He gasped, green eyes going wide with pain and terror. "Where are your teammates?"

"L-let go of me, you piece of-!"

"Yeah, yeah. Save your breath," she muttered. The tomoe in her eyes spun faster, lulling him into a genjutsu. The light faded out of his eyes as she slid her blade out from his shoulder and the tree. He sagged sideways, falling at her feet. "Let's get the fuck out of here. He won't remember what happened when he wakes up so his team can't snatch him up and drill him for answers."

"Talk about troublesome. The idiot probably ditched his team when he got a key and thought we'd be easy targets," Shikachi drawled. The pink haired girl looked beside her to watch him twirl his kunai on his ring finger, giving her an arrogant grin. "Nice, Uchiha. I would have never caught that."

"Was that a _compliment_, Nara? Is the world coming to an end," she said through a bark of a a laugh, walking forward and flicking the blood off her sword. The dark haired boy merely cocked his head with a grin. When she caught Sakumo making kissy faces, the mirth flooded out of her.

Masa huffed, tossing the small still clenched in her hand behind her towards Shikachi. He caught it in his free hand easily and slipped it over his neck, the metal clinking over the first key necklace. "Are you guys really alright with doing some more traveling? I don't want to mess with the sleeping schedule too much. At least two of us need to be well rested."

"No choice. We'll be able to rest when we find some place where we can plan to find our last key," Sakumo said, pulling out the tanto strapped to his back and looking decidedly fierce behind the mirth that still danced on his face. Masa saw his chakra dance in sparks of energy waiting to burst out and contained her smile. "Besides, I'm done with playing on the defense. What the hell is with everyone thinking they can just jump us? _We're_ the predators here, and I want to go hunting."

"Damn right," Shikachi said, tossing his kunai into the air and catching in a hard grip. "We're gonna teach these motherfuckers how to ambush a team _properly_."

"And then I get to burn this place down, right?" Masa asked. Sharingan eyes followed the trail in front of them, and the approaching chakra signatures that went from three kilometers to two. "One down, two to go."

.

.

.

"Their team really was a family though - still is, actually. It's an extended family network. I could say Naruto-ojisan is the most important adult in my life, because he picked up the pieces and dusted them off and put them back together. Hinata-obasan did too. She put all her ambassador and clan work on hold just to dote on me and the rest of the family. The twins thought I was on an extended sleepover for a while. I wish I was. It felt like it to, except they made me feel so at _home_. They're the best surrogate parents I could have ever gotten.

But then, Kakashi-ojisan is always helping me train when he's not busy and even brings me along with Sakumo. Maki-obasan always gives me sweets and tells me stories about her sensei from Suna when I stay the night. Sai-ojisan always draws me something cool and asks me about how everything is going when he comes back from his stupidly long missions. Yamato-ojisan always helps me replace the flowers in the garden I fuck up when I do taijutsu in the backyard.

They owe me _nothing_. They owe my parents nothing. They're just a part of a much larger picture I took for granted for a very long time."

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.

"I can feel my teeth rotting right inside my mouth," Sai said.

"Can I have your slice, then?" Masa asked.

"I never said I wasn't going to finish it."

Masa pouted, shoving another piece of her cake as she watched the dark haired man sketch out the fire in front of them, still flickering and shifting with dying light. His eyes shifted from the sketch pad in his lap to the fire place slowly, taking a moment to memorize each movement. It was very dark in the living room - Sakumo was snoring softly on the couch, with dried up whipped cream sticking onto the back of his head courtesy of the twins. He hadn't woken up through it, so she decided that if a ninja can't even wake up when he's having something shoved into his hair by a couple of twelve year olds, he deserved it. Everyone else was either in in their room, in a guest bedroom, or had gone home.

It had been a good night, and her dress didn't have any cake stains on it. She'd convinced Sai to stay up with her, and so they ended up in front of the fireplace with the last few pieces of cake left.

"I would much rather paint this," Sai said aloud, setting down the sketch pad and picking up his plastic plate of extra chocolate cake. "Fire needs color. Trying to capture it in black and white never comes out as realistic as I want."

"You should just quit being a ninja and become an artist, Sai-ojisan" Masa said, patting him on the shoulder. "There wouldn't be any bloodstains on your clothes, so less laundry hassles."

Sai rolled his eyes and gave her a sidelong glance. "Yes, I will definitely give up over a decade of being the Head of Black Ops to buy a little cottage on the countryside and spend the rest of my life painting."

Masa huffed, putting her plate down and searching inside the pockets of her dress for the hair pins she'd shoved inside them before coming downstairs. "Okay, first of all, don't act like your apartment isn't basically an artist's studio. There's all this _natural light_ from the windows and _classic architecture_ or whatever. You weren't meant for this lifestyle, Sai-ojisan. We all know it," she said. She got the first tiny black pin and opened it up, pinning away the carefully curled pink hair that fell across her forehead.

"Tell that to the seven hundred shinobi under my command."

"They think you're a pansy too. Take a survey."

"You are too small to have such a large mouth," Sai said dully, taking another bite of his cake. Masa started with the other pin, getting the pieces falling by her ear. He cut into another piece and held it open for her mouth, letting her greedily snatch it away with her mouth. "I heard you failed your Chuunin exams."

She froze mid bite, staring at him in horror. "A-are you mad?"

He smirked just a bit. "Not at all. I'm quite aware that you have been at Chuunin rank for some time now. And Naruto screaming about how biased the judges were gave me a clue on what happened," Sai said, switching to a very parental look that made her feel scared and slightly nauseous all over again. "The Uchiha name is a burden, even to this day and age. It will continue to be one for the rest of your life. There are many people who refuse to let the past be buried. You will learn to suffer through these things."

"It doesn't matter. Shikachi didn't make Chuunin either, so at least he'll be taking the next exam with me," the pink haired girl muttered. continued with pinning up her hair. When she finished, she let her hands rest in her lap for a while while she stared into the fire aimlessly. "We'll be much more convincing next time around."

"I'm very sure you will be," Sai said. He sighed, looking around the room with a tired gaze, then towards the small, snoring little elfin passed out on the couch. "How did you like your birthday dinner?"

"More of a party than a dinner." Masa stood from the carpet and stretched. "I loved it. Lots of presents. Good food. I even caught Kakashi-ojisan and Maki-obasan kissing. I didn't get to see his _whole_ face though."

"I hope your mental psyche is adequately in tact, then," he quipped, standing with her and carrying their plates. "Are you going to go sleep?"

"Nope. I think I'm gonna take Sakumo up to my room to sleep and then clean up the kitchen a little bit," she said, walking over to her friend and shaking him awake. "You should go to sleep, though. Naruto-ojisan said you were travelling two days straight to make it here on time."

"Worth it," he said with a shrug. He breathed deeply, an almost-yawn held back by careful control. Sakumo suddenly groaned, swatting away Masa's hands. "If I go to sleep now, I'll probably wake up tomorrow afternoon."

"Liar. You'll probably wake up when you smell breakfast then go back to sleep," Masa muttered, yanking the white haired boy up by the shoulders and glaring back when he gave her a nasty sleep-snarl that made her shake with laughter for a few seconds before she calmed herself down. "Get on your feet, asshole. I'm taking you to a bed."

"Why can't you wake me up nicely?" Sakumo moaned, shifting off the couch and standing unsteadily on his feet. He stared blearily into the darkness where Sai stood, rubbing at one eye with his palm. "Is there any more cake?"

"We ate it all."

"Why do I hang out with you people?" he muttered. Masa bit back a smile as she led her friend to the stairs. She waved a goodnight to Sai, and he smiled back before slipping into the darkness of the kitchen.

"Because you love us."

"Like I love gum at the bottom of my sandals."

Masa poked him hard in the ribs, making him moan again. She slid an arm around his shoulders, helping him up the steps that seemed much longer than usual. The weight of his body against her own made her feel suddenly protective, wondering how this tiny little thing could be the strongest kid she knows. So, so tiny, hands too small to have callouses brushing roughly against her shoulder as they trudged up to the second floor. When they got to the last one, Sakumo fist pumped the air lazily. She shook with laughter as she led him to her room, opened the door as quietly as she could, minding the creaky floorboards at the entrance just by the door.

When she half-tossed him onto her bed, she looked down at him as he closed his eyes again, squirming around to get under the blankets.

"Happy Birthday, Masa. Like. Again," he said, yawning long and loud. "Love you, fuck face."

"Love you too, dickhead," Masa chirped back.

She managed to get back down the stairs without too much noise, the callouses on her bare feet scraping against the wood with more sound than she would have liked. When she finally made it into the carpeted living room, she breathed a sigh of relief.

A small light in the kitchen was turned on, so she made her way inside. Masa stayed at the entrance and watched Sai clean away the table with a pair of hot pink dish gloves that Naruto liked using in the mornings before he went to work.

"What are you looking at?" Sai asked, giving her a cautious look. He squinted a bit, then dropped the dish rag, pulling off the gloves as he walked towards her swiftly. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Masa felt the tears fall before she realized they were there, wiping them away roughly with her forearm. "Nothing," she gasped out, trying to find her lungs through the maelstorm in her chest. She kept her eyes shut tightly when his hands went and cupped her jaw. "I just? I don't know? I'm _stupid_. I just really love you Sai-ojisan. I love everyone. I love all over you."

"I know."

"I love you all _s-so much_."

"I know."

She hiccuped, rushing forward and pressing her face into his chest. "I thought I didn't have _anyone_ a-and they left me alone but you guys were all _here_! And you cared so much and the twins made me a stupid flower crown even though all they do is eat their own boogers," Masa wept, shaking and gasping out half-sobs. She clenched Sai's shirt hard enough to rip. "I love you all so much."

"_Breathe_, Masa," Sai urged, running a hand over the back of her neck. "We love you too."

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.

.

"Okasan loved Otousan a long time before he loved her back. Everyone in the village knows the story, but you might know the real story because my Okasan and your Okasan used to _love_ gossiping. Remember when we first met and I punched you in the nose because you said my forehead was big? Otousan was so proud. I'm trying not to laugh out loud just thinking about it.

Damn it, Sakumo's knocking on the door again. You think it'll be weird if I just blame you?

Anyway, I'm still kind of bitter that Otousan didn't always treat her like he did when they were married. I wish I could have asked them everything myself. I don't even want to fathom that man as anything other than Otousan; he was the one who helped her reach things on high shelves at the grocer and kissed her forehead. Otousan talked a lot of shit for someone so affectionate. _Honestly_. Anyway, I always knew that Okasan wasn't like us - she had so much love to give, so much kindness that just sort of revolved around her. Like Naruto-ojisan, but quieter. There were no declarations. There was patience and kindness and love.

And it didn't happen overnight. He fell in love, learned to love every day. Fairy tales don't have it right. I want to learn to love someone through every single horrible moment in their life. I want to learn how to invest. I want to learn how to turn love into something more than just a kiss."

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"Dignitaries give me one of two things as presents - kimonos and weaponry. I have no need for weaponry other than basics, and I enjoy clothes suited for mission work more often than not," Hinata said through a sigh, tossing some of her thick navy hair over her shoulder and staring down the bright red kimono in her hands. "What about this one?"

"Too flashy."

"Flashy would be so _good_ for you!"

"Ah."

"Hinata-obasan, do I even have to go?" Masa pleaded, staring down the inside of the Heiress's walk-in closet with disdain and a lot of bitterness.

Hinata had gotten home late that night - Masa and Tetsuya had been awake, eating whatever food was offered in the kitchen and talking about nail polishes that could last through a mission when The Hyuuga heiress had returned. Hinata, still dressed up in ambassador-work robes, had gone over to kiss her daughter and goddaughter. They'd shared the junk food with her and continued in their conversation. When the New Years festival was mentioned, Tetsuya dropped that Masa needed a new kimono, and Hinata had taken them both to her closet. It was easy, sneaking into her shared bed room with Naruto. His snores were still deep and even with exhaustion.

Hinata had given her husband a sad, pitying look before walking over to the bed and kissing his cheek. He shifted a bit, resumed his snoring, and she headed back towards the closet.

Right now, Masa stood pacing around the walk in closet while her godmother and godsister went through a large pile of kimonos in front of them. The color range was more varied than an average rainbow. It made her nauseous looking at it for too long.

"She won't say so, but I do. So you're going."

"This is so unnecessary," Masa grumbled.

Tetsuya looked very dangerous, slanted and evil and _purely_ Uzuamki. "There's a formula to this, Masa. You know. I know about your stash of romance novels under your bed. You gotta get real dolled up before you go snatch up Prince Charming," she said smugly, tossing a plain white obi at her.

"Aniki!" Masa hissed, tossing the obi back at her. She caught it, bringing it back to her mother for inspection.

"There's a boy?" Hinata asked, eyes lighting up. Her hands grasped onto a pastel green kimono with plum colored flowers decorating it, holding it up against the white obi before settling it back into the pile on the floor. Many more surrounded the closet, sitting in folded stacks on the racks to the left side of the room. The right side was nothing but flak jackets and the like.

"Yeup! They even have this cute height difference going on, Kachan."

"Oh, what's his name?"

"_Hinata-obasan_!"

"The Nara's second oldest boy. The one on her team."

Masa groaned, covering up her burning face. "There's nothing even going on! We're just starting to get along now!" she snapped, turning away from them and rubbing a hand to her forehead. "He was just really cool during the Chuunin exams last when I had to go up against Sakumo and lost. He's...a good friend. A very good friend."

"Then just go to the festival, see your friend, and have some fun!" Tetsuya said, clapping her hands together louder than she should have. "These things have a tendency to work themselves out in the first place, you know. Don't stress over it."

"She's right," Hinata said with a small smile. The warmth and understanding in them made Masa's stomach turn with fright because she _wanted_ someone to understand, _wanted_ the clenching in her stomach to become normal. Simple. Nothing out of the ordinary for every single girl in the world. "You're young right now. These things take time."

Masa sighed, covering her face with her hands. "I know, Obasan," she muttered.

Tetsuya stretched out with a loud yawn before laying on the floor, her head in her mother's lap. "You should tell her how you and Tousan fell in love," she said with a wide grin. Hinata sighed, running her hand through her oldest daughter's thick blonde hair before looking up at Masa with red cheeks.

"That depends on if she'd want to hear, Tetsuya-chan," she said, offering a smile. Hinata pat the floor beside her. "Would you?"

Masa bit her lip before nodding, walking over. "I'm always up for hearing Naruto-ojisan being stupid," she said sarcastically.

"Then you're gonna love this," Tetsuya said gleefully.

.

.

"Naruto-ojisan made me instant ramen after the funeral. We went up to the roof for a long time. Aniki and Hinata-obasan left us alone for the day. I've never seen him look so sad, without his Hokage robe and flak jacket. He looked all cried out. There were still tear stains from the ceremony on his face but I didn't say anything. He talked about their genin days, looking for Otousan, coming back from the war and trying to pick themselves up. He talked about asking Okasan's help for planning his wedding and Otousan's help in buying his house.

Then Naruto-ojisan looked at me for a long time and said that Otousan and Okasan didn't really die because I was still here. I didn't understand it for a long time. They were dead. They were never coming back. And that was okay.

It was what they left behind. They would always be here - in the pink hair, the fan on my back, in all the memories I had of them locked up in my chest. I am Haruno _and_ Uchiha. I have their blood, their flesh in my body. They belong to me as much as I belong to them.

They'd always be with me."

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.

.

The Kazekage was probably the most intimidating man in the world.

And was _missing his eyebrows. _

"This is Uchiha Masa, my other teammate. She made into the tournament rounds too," Shikachi said, nodding his head towards her, as if waving would have been too much of an effort. He gave his uncle a kind, lazy smile. She could not help but think that the desert sun was kind to him, light playing against his skin and into his eyes. "She's the one on my team at home."

"Ahh."

"She's the one who blew up the giant scorpion." The smugness in his tone made her smile involuntarily.

The Kazekage rested his too bright eyes on her, _Shikachi's_ eyes, set in blackened under eye circles against too pale skin. "I heard about that from my Jonin exam conductors. Some were more scared than they should have been," he said, giving her a warm smile. His eyes twinkled with quiet amusement. "Naruto spoke very much about you. Lots of loud bragging, and something about his goddaughter taking after her parents and himself very well."

"As _if_ I take after Naruto-ojisan. The only thing we have in common is that we live off ramen," Masa murmured, wiping sweat from her brow.

"I'd call that an infection, not genetics," the Kazekage drawled, giving a distinctly disdainful look as the Hokage, a few feet behind them, laughing loudly speaking with a very irritated Temari who looked downright offended. Shikachi chuckled as his mother's hands balled up into fists.

"Ojisan, we're gonna go get some food and find Sakumo," the dark haired boy said, reaching over and giving his uncle a very manly hug, hands clapping on the back and everything. He was nearly his height, for however skinny he was. "We'll see you for dinner, yeah?"

"You will."

"Awesome."

Masa had never been dragged along so thoroughly in her life. Shikachi's calloused hand, rough and hot against her skin, enclosed around the entirety of her wrist.

"I heard Suna makes the spiciest ramen in the _world_," she said, slipping out of his wrist and kicking up sand as she sprinted past him. He caught up easily, strides long and lean and powerful against her quick and sharp and lithe movements. "Let's try it out. Or, _I_ should, and you just pay."

"Why not? I'll even wipe up your tears when your eyes start watering," Shikachi shot back, elbowing her in the ribs before running ahead.

Masa snickered, flickering into a blur ahead of dust she left in her wake.

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"It's been two years since the funeral - a rough two years. Naruto-ojisan found lots of gray hairs. Hinata-obasan keeps fighting with the clan elders over things no one wants to tell me. I didn't make Chuunin the first time around and it still bothers me because I fucking deserved it. Konohamaru-sensei started making fun of my forehead when I grew out my bangs. Baa-chan said I could never learn medical ninjutsu. Aniki _still_ looks at me like I'm going to have a psychotic break down whenever my parents come up in conversation. Sakumo's mom isn't home as much as she used to be (as much as she _should_ be). There are still a lot of villagers who stare too long at me when I walk by. People died today. More people will die tomorrow. There is still so much I'm learning, that I have to learn.

You kissed me and I don't know why. You took advantage of my feelings when you never showed that you thought anything of me other than a friend and I don't know why. You hurt me and there are so many things I can't fix and you went and threw yourself into my list of problems.

I don't know anymore. _But_.

(There's always a _but_ in these kinds of things.)

Even if everything is still such a mess, the sun is still going to rise. And that is the only thing to consider at the end of the day. Tomorrow, the sun will rise for everything and everyone."

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.

The sky looked very summer-esque, clear and sunny even though the chill of autumn bit at the exposed skin between her shorts and boots. But Masa pretended anyway, staring up into the sky with a pleasure that she could not hide between her teeth with her legs crossed at the ankle and strands of grass stuck in her hair.

"I still haven't packed anything yet," Sakumo said, sighing heavily to her left. He had his eyes closed, hands folding underneath his head, and legs spread out in front of him. His hair fell in front of his eyes carelessly.

"You asshole. Is that why you've been sleeping over at my place for the past week? You're leaving _tonight_," Shikachi reprimanded through a loud groan, dull and irritated. "Get on that shit, Hatake. You're gonna get your ass kicked if you don't have everything ready on time. I don't care who you're trying to avoid."

"How's Kakashi-ojisan doing?" Masa cut in, turning her head to survey her best friend's carefully blank face.

"Not sure."

"Is Maki-obasan still-?"

"Yeup."

"You _can't_ just keep avoiding him," Shikachi called out. Masa nodded in agreement. "This is going to be difficult on both of them, you know. If you go without clearing the air, then you'll regret it for a long time."

"I don't want to look him in the face," Sakumo said easily, a snarl twitching at the very edges of his face. "I _refuse_ to be the ignored child again. Kachan refuses to be the ignored housewife. He did this to himself."

"We can go with you," Masa offered. There will always be a soft spot in her heart for the man, but her friend came first. She would be as cold and ignoring as he wanted her to be, if it meant not hurting his feelings. "Moral support and whatever. It might help. We'd speed right past him to get your stuff. Maybe leave through the window, too."

"No. I don't want you guys there," the white haired boy said, opening his eyes and scrambling to his feet gracelessly. There was tired written all over his face. "I can do it."

"Come over to my house when you're done. You can eat dinner there with us," she called to him as he left the field.

"If it's ramen again, I'll pass," Sakumo muttered.

It was quiet again, after his footsteps faded from their hearing, and the wind rustled against the grass, cold and unrelenting. Masa sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, giving a sidelong glance to the dark haired boy who stared at the sky with wide open eyes, too bright and moon-like for his drawling voice.

"When are _you_ leaving, you troublesome girl?" Shikachi prompted, not taking his eyes off the clouds.

"Tonight, stupid. I told you both last week that I was going to Suna first with Sakumo before me and Naruto-ojisan went to Wave Country," she said. A grin found it's way to her lips as she envisioned Suigetsu snatching her up into a bear hug and Karin kissing her forehead and the giant, vicious swordsmen that she was going to meet for a second time. "I haven't been to Kiri since I was a kid."

"Try to get back in one piece, yeah?"

"You know I always do."

"Well I'm not there to make sure, so you have to promise anyway."

"Talk all this macho shit like I couldn't kick your ass any day of the week, hmm?" Masa scoffed, standing from the grass and putting her hands on her barely-there hips. "I won't be long, Nara."

Shikachi sighed, raising himself onto his feet with the speed of a decrepit, arthritis-ridden old man. It made the bare-there lilt of her grin fall. "You still didn't promise," he said pointedly, raising a brow at her. He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave her the a half bored, half bitter frown that made her throat close up.

For a moment, she did not think of Sakumo following his mother to Suna to get away from the black hole that was his father's grief, unable to get through much else. She thought of Shikachi, who has more friends and more people rooting for him than she could even imagine. She thought of the boy with dark hair and dull eyes who always kept her level-headed during missions. She thought of the boy who picked her up and dusted her off right after he landed a fist into her face. She thought of the person who was constantly at the back of her head at any given hour that she decided to be rid of because he would never give her the time of day. She thought of the friend she would be leaving behind.

"I won't be too long, Shikachi," she said again, voice dropping several octaves out of her consciousness. She wasn't sure if she kept goading him just because she wanted a reaction, but for a second she thought she was gonna get one.

He looked at her for a very very long time, craning his neck down to look at her with eyes more alive than she had ever seen before, hard and soft and warm and every promise they'd ever made. And suddenly, everything was all wrong. These weren't eyes you gave to your teammate, or your friend, or someone you casually hate. Her heart sped up with a ferocity she hadn't felt in a long time. She should feel the shift in the air, the step closer he took as they watched each other with bright, eager eyes that did not belong to fourteen year olds.

Masa swallowed hard when he looked away.

"I wanna stay here a little longer," Masa said, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him back onto the field they laid on.

"It's cold as hell."

"You know it feels nice anyways."

"I think I'll go," he said with a roll of his eyes, shifting out of her grasp and clapping her on the shoulder. "You guys are leaving from the West gates, right? I'll be there to say goodbye tonight."

Before she could utter another word, Masa watched him walk away brusquely, hands shoved into his pockets with a defeated hunch she did not understand. There were a few quiet moments she spent for memorizing his poor posture and the swing of his gait. She laid down without him, looking up to stare at the sky and trying to imprint this moment into her memory, the sky almost as blue as the flecks of pastel in Shikachi's eyes. Kiri had too many clouds for her liking, but the air was cool and clean.

There were still things to do today; she had to visit her parent's graves today before she left, clean up her room so Hinata-obasan wouldn't have to worry about housework later, and make sure she packed enough dango for her and Sakumo on the trip. She'd be able to resupply herself once they got to Suna.

There were still things to do today, but Masa closed her eyes and thought that almost-autumn felt very nice against her skin.

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"The sun has always risen, even when humanity has crippled itself seemingly beyond repair. That is what I think of when I wake up in the morning with pain, grief, weariness, whatever is weighing me down. The sun rose for the days when all I did was cry in the shower and eat instant ramen. The sun rose for the days when Konohamaru-sensei worked us to a bloody pulp. The sun rose for the days when we laid out in the field and argued about cloud shapes. The sun rose for the days when you let me practice with my chukoto on you. The sun rose for the days I bared my teeth at the world and spat fire at the sky. The sun rose and didn't give a shit about me or you or any other human in the world. I can't even explain it. I just sat in awe one day and wondered if I could manage that.

The sun rose in the morning through all of that, and so did I. Every single day. There's no other way that I can say that I am _trying_. I am trying so hard and the people who matter the most still don't see I'm not sure if you do, either. (I'm not sure about anything involving you.)

I will be okay, and I will make it back.

I promise."

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.

.

The pack that Masa shouldered wasn't particularly heavy - she stuff a lot of stuff into little storing scrolls that she organized by general use. The damn thing just didn't settle right on her shoulders.

"You okay?" Sakumo asked, eyeing her fidgeting.

"I'm fine," she muttered, refraining from poking him in the ribs.

The twins were off to the side, talking excitedly with Tetsuya so fast she could barely discern what they were saying. She was adjusting their packs, asking them questions about what they should do if they were approached by people they didn't know, and if they'd already went to the bathroom. There was a distinctly motherly tone to her voice that made Masa's stomach clench.

Her eyes were trained with sharp focus towards her godparents, who stood farther off to the side, talking in quiet voices. It was just past sunset, dark enough to pull shadows around them, but not dark enough to conceal them from her gaze. They were surrounded by at least eight ANBU elites, all shadowing the Hokage easily. It didn't look like a happy conversation. Naruto was much taller than Hinata, so he had to crane his head forward, bend and lean and angle his body towards her in a presence of intimacy that she did not understand. They didn't kiss, didn't touch, even when Hinata finally looked up from her wringing hands to smile softly at him. He smiled just as soft.

They'd only be apart for a few weeks, while Naruto made his way throughout the Hidden Villages to meet with their Kages on official business. They'd head to Suna first, dropping off Sakumo with his mother, then Kiri, dropping off Masa with Suigetsu and Karin.

Sakumo had guessed there was a war brewing - Otogakure had been making a lot of noise lately with the new leader and underground movement of nukenin from around the world gathering together for terrible things, none of which they wanted to hear. Masa thought that Naruto was trying to keep a war _from_ brewing with the smaller Hidden Villages with crumbling economies that they blamed on the larger villages.

Neither of them new for sure. Politics had never been a guessing game.

Either way, there was distinct worry in the way that Hinata kept her hands clasped together, stretching and curling around each other. There was distinct urgency with the way Naruto clasped her cheek with his hand when he leaned in to kiss her.

Masa looked away, lips pursed. "Something bad is gonna happen," she murmured to the white haired boy. He nodded silently. "Naruto-ojisan _suggested_ that I go in the first place. He hates travelling, you know. I think he wants me in Kiri for a reason."

"Like my mom wanted me in Suna for a reason?" Sakumo prompted, raising a brow at her. "They're hiding something?"

"Something. A big something."

They stayed silent, tense and posing questions in their heads that they could not answer.

Then suddenly, Masa's body went stiff, locked and hunched over uncomfortably. She huffed in the stress of trying to move her arm when she was dead locked. Sakumo gave her a strange, questioning, look, but she merely held her hand towards him - _out of her control_ - out with a finger pointing to signal she needed a minute.

The pink haired girl wanted to laugh at the sudden realization as she whirled around and started walking towards the other side of the street, slipping into an alley. She didn't bother turning on her eyes when she felt the muted chakra signature as she got close enough to hear his footsteps.

"I hate this stupid jutsu," she said aloud to him, his body visible, and face masked by the darkness and the shadows. She turned on her eyes then, seeing his chakra outline before blinking, the features of his face swathed in the blue outlines of skin and flesh.

"Even if it saved your ass multiple times?" Shikachi asked, smirking down at her.

"Of course. I hate everything about you," Masa said, reaching out to grab his forearm. She squeezed hard. "You almost didn't say goodbye."

"Almost."

"But you did."

"Because I would have regretted it."

"Of course you would have. I probably would have beaten you up," Masa replied, pulling him closer and wrapping her arms around his waist. Her head barely came up to his collarbones. Her voice fell into a quiet whisper. "Please don't be mad at me."

He sighed, long and hard, easily wrapping his arms around her shoulder. "I think I'm more bitter than anything. You assholes like leaving me behind. And we just started being friends too, I guess. It's too soon. I feel like I don't know anything about you yet," Shikachi muttered, rough fingers playing in the hair at the nape of her neck. She shivered involuntarily, skin flooding with heat. "Are you cold?"

Her face flooded with heat for a very different reason. "No."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." Masa clenched the fabric of his shirt and twisted it a little bit. His fingers kept playing with her hair and she relaxed. "I don't like leaving you behind. I like you right next to me."

"Good. Then I'll get back to where I was when you come home," Shikachi said. His hand stopped playing with her hair, swept across her neck and over her pulse point. Masa willed her heart to stop beating so hard but she couldn't. "If you even come back."

"I will. I'll _always_ come back," she said, breathing the words into his chest. Didn't he believe her.

"Maybe you need some incentive," he drawled.

Masa blinked, stepping away from his arms that hung too loosely at her shoulders to stare at him in question. "Incentive?" she asked.

He was close again, bending and leaning and angling himself towards her so that his forehead met her's. Masa's breathing shifted, heavy with anticipation. She felt his breath fan across her face with warmth. Her eyes closed of their own across even though she wanted to keep them open, memorize his the outline of his face in the blue light of her Sharingan.

"Incentive," Shikachi whispered. And then he kissed her, chaste and dry, warm lips against her own.

The shock fell away with ease. His hands shifted to her waist, pulling him closer, and she gasped at his calloused hands lifting up her shirt to press into the skin at the sides of her waist. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, trying to press closer, and felt a smile curve onto this mouth. Masa shifted her mouth along his as she reached for him, stepping on the tips of her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him down to her. Shikachi sighed, tongue tracing her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth, letting him shift into her mouth.

The spell broke suddenly. Every ounce of self consciousness and confusion fell onto her as she realize that she should have kept her mouth closed. It was awkward, too wet and too slow, even when he bit down on her bottom lip hard when she began to shake with laughter. Masa broke away from him and tried to keep from laughing aloud.

"We are very bad as this," Masa choked out, still shaking.

"Whatever," Shikachi said, ducking down and trying to steal another kiss. She dodged him easily. "Practice makes perfect."

"Well then, you're not allowed to practice with anyone else," Masa said, her arms around his neck putting him in a tight embrace. "You're gonna wait for me."

He didn't say anything, just tilted his head as he pressed his lips into her jaw, cheek, ear. "I could wait for you," Shikachi muttered. Masa's skin went cold at his next words. "Or you could stay. With me."

It took a moment to process it, the words following the line of her spine and making her tense under his touch. She pulled away from him, eyes shifting from swirling red to black. She looked up into the shadow of his face, his body, arms that still reached out for her. "Shikachi," Masa ground out, throat suddenly tightening because she wanted to stay so badly in that second, even if Naruto wouldn't let her, even if it wasn't going to be safe, even if he wanted her here only to ease his own loneliness. "Just stop it."

"I want you here with _me_."

"Liar."

"I don't lie."

Masa bit down on her lip as she gave him a pitiful glare that she knew he could see. Her mouth still lingered with the taste of him and it began to feel foreign and sour. "This isn't- you can't just- you _know_ how I feel!" she muttered harshly. "You know. But what about _you_?"

"I don't- I don't _know_, okay? I'm not sure. But I know I feel like shit when I think about you being gone," he said, reaching out for her again. For a second, she wished he had lied, but Nara Shikachi was not a liar, would never be a liar, even if it meant saving her feelings. "Sakumo told me and I felt stupid for seeing everything so _late_. I just knew that I couldn't let you go. I can't let you go. So stay. Please."

The crack of his voice traveled through her entire body, an ache she could not place. "I'm not a doll you can string along until you decide to play with me," Masa said, giving a hard shove to his chest before walking away.

She pretended the barely-there rays of sun stung at her eyes as she slipped out of the darkness of the alley.

.

.

.

"I don't know why I wanted to write this to you. You didn't even really ask, but it's an explanation anyway. Sakumo knows everything; he's always known. But you don't, and you became just as important as him. So now you know.

(I'm not sure if I should write you more later on. I think I'd like to, but honestly, would your lazy ass even bother to write me back? I'm not wasting my time if you don't even put in any effort.)

I don't know what I'm going to do when I get home. I might punch you in the face when I get home. I might laugh and say you still sound like a six year old. There will be questions that you need answers for. You have the time to figure it out. Are you smarter than me? You weren't really acting like it. I don't know.

I know the sun is gonna come up tomorrow morning, though. I know you're gonna see that same sun I am next to all the clouds you love. So every time you see it or feel it, I hope you think of me. I hope you miss me so much that you start to hate sunny days because you think of me, you think of me not being there with you, you think of the way that you tried to twist me around your little finger just to make me stay. I hope you do that for years. I hope I make you angry. I hope I make you frustrated. I hope I make you even more bitter than you'd ever thought you would be. I hope you dream of me. Every night.

Then maybe we'll be even."

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Masa sat in the tub, a small notebook in her lap, and a pen clenched angrily in her hand.

"I'm _sorry_! Masa! Seriously!" Sakumo half-shrieked, sounding more exasperated than apologetic now. It had been ten minutes of her silence as she tried to think through his words. "I only said something because he was too stupid to open his eyes and-!"

"If you know on that door one more time, I will come out there and I'm going to punch you in your other eye!" she screamed suddenly, slamming a fist onto the bottom of the tub and glaring at the tub with all that she was worth. Her eyes flashed red, but sparked back into black. There was a pumping of hot, furious blood through her veins that held close to the anger that she held close all through the night, all through the day, until they got to the little inn to rest.

It was silent then, only the hot breaths she emitted through her mouth were heard as they settled into quiet. She was already on her knees, but then looked at herself and settled back down to cross her legs underneath her. The bathroom lights were bright and too harsh on her tired eyes, even when she closed shower curtain up.

Masa stared at the blank notebook paper, poised over her open-capped pen as she thought.

_I feel like I don't really know anything about you,_ his voice floated through her head, soft and high and clear.

He really didn't - not the important stuff. Not the things that mattered. It had only been a little less than a year that they'd stopped bickering and started arguing like friends, throwing topics back and forth, helping each other with training when they'd come back from their first Chuunin exams. They'd went into the second one in Suna easily, teamwork too in sync for their replacement teammate to keep up with.

Before she knew it, Masa's hand was scribbling across the page with a reluctant grimace pulling at her lips.

.

.

.

"So don't worry about me. I won't be long, Shikachi - I won't. Besides, we have plenty of time. You hold down the home fort while I'm gone. Get stronger. Get _smarter. _There will be a lot of catching up to do, but I'm not worried.

We've got a lifetime to watch the sun rise. "

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**A/N:** _Introducing Uchiha Masa - certified bad bitch with a ramen fetish. Also, a few notes._

(1)_ Masa speaks of her parents and refers to all her "uncles" and "aunts" and "grandmother" very respectfully on purpose. No one else gets honorifics bc she doesn't give a shit._ (2)_ The Maki that's being referred to as Sakumo's mother is Maki-no-last-name from Suna! _(3)_ The twins referred to here are lil NaruHina kids a few years younger than Masa._ (4) _Hinata is clan head in this AU and the elders were super insistent on her kids having her last name, but Naruto didn't give a shit so he just went with it. _(5)_ The Hyuuga-Uzumaki family doesn't live in the clan compound because Naruto **did** give a shit about it. _(6) _LETS PRETEND THAT THE SHARINGAN HAS NIGHTVISION CAPABILITIES YEAH? YEAH._ (7)_ If you have any other questions, shoot them my way._

_Gimme your opinion! I'm like stuck and just so emotional about this. AND THE NEW NARUTO CHAPTER COMES OUT TONIGHT. I STAYED AWAKE BY EDITING THIS. EVERY CELL IN MY BODY IS ALIVE._


	2. not all of me shall die

**A/N:**_ It's official. This is going to be a series of one-shots focused around this AU (in no particular order, of course). Expect sporadic updates and crying and my new OTP. Remember to review too!_

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**. non omnis moriar . **

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The last of Sakura's were burned into her memory, fresh and visceral.

Sakura could remember was the smell of smoke, clogging her lungs as she the ground cracked beneath her fists. She could remember the sound of shinobi screaming her name in terror. She could remember the hate, the pure fury burning inside of her veins as she rushed and released the seal on her forehead and formed chakra scalpels sharp enough to slit a thousand throats. Sakura could remember the crying, loud sobs of civilians who did not belong, did not see a survival through this battle field of vicious shinobi. She remembered the hopelessness, as she searched out for Sasuke's voice, screaming something that sounded like _I love you_ but angrier, fiercer, teeth against hot skin. She remembered no back up, the two of them fighting until her body was left to ruin and the minutes stretched into hours.

Sakura could remember the encampment they decimated, dozens of shinobi turning into hundred. She remembered buildings going down and new defenses going up. She remembered feeling old much too old, thirty two and fighting like she was the same seventeen year old trying to survive a war all over again.

And - and she remembered Naruto being _much_ too late to rely on.

Sakura could remember was the haziness of the reddened sky above her as she destroyed and destroyed and _destroyed_ - Sasuke's chidori chirping into blackness of the fog- her own unconscious roars echoing into the night- earthquakes splintering from her feet- the Yin seal against her forehead burning with sixteen years of carefully kept chakra flooding back into her body- the purple light of Susano'o, a vengeful god in the sky- the sour smoke of Amaterasu burning down everything and everyone she had yet to turn to rubble-

And her hands, connecting with flesh, her fists running through bodies faster than she could find the oxygen in the tainted air. And the blood, staining the white of her skin, the green of the grass, the blue of the sky- _or maybe that was the fire?_

And her heart, beating so hard in her ears that she couldn't hear her own screams, the explosions loud enough to blast her ears drums out and trickle blood down the side of her head. And the noiseless horror of Sasuke's face. And her hands pressed into Sasuke's back, pouring the rest of her chakra into him-

-and her whispers against his ear, his hands clenched tight enough to snap all the bones in her arm, and-

_I'm sorry, Sakura. I'm sorry I wasn't on time. _

_It's okay, Sasuke._

_I'm sorry. _

-and ten thousand apologies tasting like the death ashes clouding the air-

_I love you, okay. Okay? I fix you up. Come here, Sasuke. _

-and Sakura could remember the world ending. Almost. Not quiet. Sakura could remember dying before the story ended.

The pale blue light of Naruto's rasengan was the last thing she registered in her hazy vision when a the tanto forced it's way into her back. Her consciousness faded quickly, mercifully.

But now, Sakura could feel it coming back to her. It had only been a moment, only a second of blackness, before being pulled back once more. It was more unpleasant than leaving; her mind was jerked and seized back into place. She reached out suddenly, feeling the grass underneath her fingertips and the sunlight pouring over her sore eyelids.

She groaned aloud. Her eyes fluttered open.

It was not the red sky.

"It worked. It _worked_," a voice gasped, breathy and tired and grasping on the edges of familiar to her. Sakura blinked and focused. "I can- I think I can hold this up for a little while."

"It won't last more than ten minutes," another voice whispered back, shocked and pained. "Hurry."

"I will."

Sakura looked up at the forestry above her the trees and leaves as she laid out on the grass and remembered her death like a story she did not get to finish. The light filtered around her, putting everything into light. She turned her head to the side to see Sasuke, laid out on the floor beside her, twitching painfully with chalk-pale, cracked skin-

She gasped, pulling her hands to her face to look at them, the skin the same texture. She scrambled to her feet and saw the seal at her feet, in swooping black lines of chakra that made her bristle in fury.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" she roared, standing from the ground angrily, feeling her chakra already pulsing through her hands because no no _no_ this wasn't supposed to happen, this jutsu was supposed to be as dead as her. "Where did you get the knowledge to this jutsu!?"

Sasuke hissed in pain beside her, but she paid him no heed because he was dead and she was dead and they were supposed to be dead and living happily together somewhere with lots of fluffy white clouds that served them tea in the afternoon and not somewhere with grass and _not breathing_. Sakura saw the seal on the ground, black and twisting and connecting her to Sasuke, and them to a point too far for her to see correctly.

There was more gasping, and hard, controlled breathing. "You look exactly the same."

"That is so not the point!" she shrieked, gathering chakra into her fists and taking a menacing step forward. "You aren't supposed to be using this jutsu! This isn't supposed to- oh _please_, get up Sasuke!"

"Could you shut up for five minutes, you annoying woman?" Sasuke ground out, shifting from the ground and standing much more gracefully. He glared out into the forest, the seal beneath his feet before looking at Sakura. His eyes widened in shock, for a second of silence, before he was roaring with eyes that began to spun with his Mangekyou Sharingan. "Why are- is this supposed to be?- I am _dead_- you are supposed to be- _who is using this fucking jutsu on us_?"

The urge to burst into laughter almost overtook her, because in her entire life, never has she seen Sasuke sputter like this so furiously.

"Dear _gods _we're gonna_ die _why did you make me fucking _do_ this."

"Calm down," the first voice said again in a soothing tone - a man and a woman. Or a boy and a girl? They sounded decidedly young to her.

The thought of a couple of teenagers conjuring her up made her so suddenly furious that the threats found her mouth before she'd even sorted them out properly.

"Show yourself now!" Sakura roared again. "Or so help me I will turn this forest to _rubble_!" A pause. Sakura pointed to Sasuke. "And then he'll burn the rest of it up!"

"Okasan, you're still super mean," the voice said, watery and hopeless. Sakura's entire body froze with shock because-

Sasuke stilled, a statue of a dead body among the living, breathing forest that chirped out happily, obliviously, because there is only _one_ person in the world who ever called her Okasan.

The owner of the voice stepped forward, away from the shadows of the trees, and she thought her heart would have stopped if it could.

She couldn't have been older than eighteen. Her hair was still pink, florescent and wild, but now it was sheared off in a barely-there boy cut, with thick bangs falling over her forehead. Her skin was pale, stark and unearthly against the bright red and black of her Sharingan and the dark half moons underneath them. Her lips were clenched tightly in a controlled scowl as tears fell over her cheeks. She wore a flak jacket, looking almost too bulky for her, against the black mini skirt and thigh-high boots. A sword was strapped to her back, slanted sideways and angled towards her left arm.

"Masa," Sakura breathed.

"I hoped you would remember me," the pink haired girl murmured, biting down on her lip for a second as her voice caught. "It's been a while"

Sakura heard Sasuke stop breathing, and he went silent for a while, and they all went silent with hearts ready to burst. The thoughts in her head had halted as she watched the small, lithe form of her daughter stand before her in a kunoichi's uniform. The chukoto slug at her waist made it look all the more perfect.

"You have my sword," he murmured suddenly.

"Yeah," she said. Masa nodded quickly, looking more wobbly by the second. "It's a very good sword."

"Ah," he said, stepping forward as his eyes roamed around the forest dumbly before they narrowed. "You come out, too, brat."

There was a ruffle of anger, before Masa turned around and waved the stranger up. "It's fine. They're fine. They won't hurt you," she whispered a touch too loudly, waiting a moment before reaching out and snatching the person by the shoulder.

A boy, as young as her, stumbled out beside her before righting himself and giving her a glare. "Tell him to put his eyes away, and then I'll believe him," he muttered.

"As if," Sasuke scoffed aloud. The boy visibly blanched with fear. Sakura resisted the snicker bubbling up her throat.

He was very tall, much taller than her, with a thin frame and gangly limbs, dressed in the same Konoha uniform. He had thick black hair tied up into a high pony tail and slanted cerulean eyes that were bright, calculating with intelligence. Sakura watched as he shoved his hands into his pockets and turned stiff at her scrutiny.

"This is still a fucking stupid idea," he said to Masa, not bothering to stay quiet. He stared at the two corpses in front of him with obvious apprehension.

"Then why did you come to help in the first place?" Masa hissed, glaring over her shoulder at him.

"Because I have a bad habit of spoiling you."

She scoffed aloud, wiping away a few tears that had strayed beyond her control with the back of her arm. The boy placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a quiet look of intimacy that did that fall away from Sakura's eyes, before he shoved unceremoniously her towards them. Masa stumbled slightly before straightening herself and walking towards them.

"I told myself I wouldn't cry," Masa said, wiping her face again as she took in the picture of her parents standing together. She smiled tightly. It looked very painful. "But I'm still a crybaby."

"I told you that you get it from me. Haruno girls are too emotional for their own good," Sakura said woefully, as if lamenting the fate of a burnt breakfast, before walking forward and could wrapping arms around her daughter's shoulders as hard as she could. Sasuke sighed, coming upon them. "No, no - _woman_. You're a _woman_ now. I might cry."

"You'll break her, Sakura," he admonished, placing a hand over Masa's head and ruffling her hair. Her eyes were clamped shut tightly as she gasped for breath, a strain on her body. "It's very good to see you."

"Anata, just look at her. She's so _beautiful_," Sakura whispered delightfully, pulling away from hugging her daughter to cradle her face. Tears stung at her own eyes and she wasn't sure because a corpse wasn't supposed to have tears to shed but she felt like she did. The urge to kiss all over the girl's face grabbed at her, but she didn't, because this was Uchiha Sasuke's daughter as much as her own. Masa merely stared at the ground, trying to stifle her sobs. Sasuke hummed in agreement, a smirk playing at his lips.

"You're saying that because she could pass for your twin."

"Oh, but she has _your_ eyes."

Sasuke nodded, reaching over with one hand to grab at his daughter's chin with gentle fingers. He lifted her head up, catching the blinking away of her tears. "She does," he murmured. Sasuke lifted his hand to push her hair away from her eyes and place a chaste kiss on her forehead, like she was twelve years old again. "You've grown so much. I can't see the little twelve year old anywhere."

Masa nodded hastily before rushing forward to hug her father, squeezing him tight around the middle, he smiled adoringly, arms around her shoulders. "Do we have the time to talk?" he asked her, giving Sakura a pointed look.

"I-I just- I'm sorry. Yeah," she gasped out, pulling away from her father and wiping at her face once more with rough movements. "We do. A few minutes. This jutsu doesn't last long. It's the Nidaime's imperfected version. The knowledge for the one you fought in the war is long gone. I just...I wanted to see you guys one more time. I had to do this."

"I'm sorry we had to leave you," Sakura asked, stepping next to her husband and daughter. Her hand was warm and soothing, running along Masa's back. "I wish we were just better prepared before we got to go."

"I'm sorry...we couldn't say goodbye," Sasuke murmured, looking up at the sky for a quiet moment before returning his gaze to his family and Sakura knew everything she wanted to apologize for to this man who grew flowers inside of the darkest parts of her chest for a lifetime cut so short. "I hope you're happy."

"I am. Naruto-ojisan and Hinata-obasan took very good care of me. I live on my own now, though," she replied, giving them a pained smile before pointing behind her. "With that idiot and another friend."

"Wow._ I'm_ the idiot here," the boy from behind her drawled sarcastically, loud enough for her to hear.

"Shut the hell up up!" Masa shouted back over her shoulders before turning back to her parents with red staining her cheeks. "Uh, sorry."

"Well then," Sakura said, quirking a brow at the decidedly nervous boy standing behind him. "He looks familiar. What's his name?"

"Nara Shikachi. The kid I punched when I was eight for saying my forehead was big," she said, looking over her shoulder with a veiled affection. "He's my- he's my teammate."

"Oh, yes. Your...teammate," Sakura said, smiling sugary sweet.

"What?" Sasuke snapped. Masa paled considerably.

The urge to laugh hit Sakura again, twice as hard, but she resisted.

"It's- it's complicated? I guess? Very complicated. Completely. I have no time for boys during a war. None. I just- let's not talk about that, yeah? Um. I made jonin a couple of weeks ago. Oh, and I haven't been practicing any medical ninjutsu because I suck. Sorry, Okasan."

Sakura nodded sagely at a still reeling Sasuke, glaring over their shoulders because his only daughter was _'very complicated'_ with the gangly little whimp who could barely look him in the eye. "It's alright. Your Otousan sucked too."

"Shikamaru's brat is with_ my daughter_?" he hissed, ignoring the obvious jab as he sent waves of malicious chakra out over the field. Sakura poked him in the ribs hard, and he sighed, watching his family once more. He looked down at Masa with parental irritation. "I don't like it."

"Anata, please," Sakura admonished.

"I'm serious."

"Well, I don't like him most of the time, to be honest, but he's very sweet. Um, kind. Very kind," Masa murmured, reaching out for her father's hand and squeezing. She looked up to Sakura, visibly sagging and giving her a very depressed look. Sakura's heart began to splinter. "I can't keep this jutsu going for long. It's taking up a lot of chakra, and Naruto-ojisan is going to figure out that we're here soon."

"How did you even find a way to use it? Or the instructions?" Sakura asked, reaching out and taking her other hand. A white hot feeling of fear traveled through her body. "Who were the sacrifices that you used for-?"

"Some Sound nin that attacked the encampment earlier. We got them from interrogation. No one knows I'm here but Shikachi," Masa in a suddenly hard, old voice, of a jaded girl that Sakura did not remember raising. "Naruto-ojisan spent a while looking for the instructions on Orochimaru's reanimation jutsu when he found out the enemy was trying to look for it. We just sort of...stole it today."

Sasuke scowled. "Enemy?"

Sakura squeezed her daughter's hand. "Encampment?"

She shrugged with a grimace. "It's wartime right now. Oto teamed up with Tanigakure and Ishigakure because their economies were failing from all the work that the bigger Hidden Villages were taking up. They decided to pick on Konoha first. It's gotten sort of bad," Masa said, sighing heavily. "I just- when I heard about Edo Tensei...I couldn't pass it up. I couldn't miss this chance. Please don't be mad."

Sakura shook her head. "I don't care. I'm glad I got to see you," she said softly. "I'm just glad we got to see you one last time."

Masa was shaking her head, voice going high and speaking as fast as possible, looking pale and sleepless and young again. Sakura could feel the strain under in her hands as she tried to keep her chakra attached to them. "I don't- I don't _want_ it to be the last time! If I can figure out how Kabuto managed to perfect the Nidaime's jutsu, I can-!"

"There's a reason why this jutsu was stored away and deemed forbidden," Sasuke hushed her, voice low and rough. "You shouldn't be chasing after ghosts, Masa."

"_Please_," Masa said, gasping. She gripped their hands hard with the strain, and Sakura could almost feel her chakra sputtering out of life. "Please don't go."

Sakura shook her head. "I want a hug," she said. "Come on, you two."

And suddenly, thin, pale arms were wrapped around her stomach with a force that nearly shocked her. Sakura felt Masa shake with effort as her consciousness became hazy again. She looked up, above her head, to see Sasuke closing his eyes tightly with a locked, strained jaw.

"I will _always_ love you," he whispered, a hand on her head again. "Both of you."

Masa gasped out with a shudder, and soon, Sakura saw Sasuke's skin begin to peel away. She blinked, watching his face crack more as a strained smile pulled at his lips. They stepped away from their daughter, and Sakura looked up, as little tiny bits of her began to float away from her body and into the sun.

"I wish I could keep your here longer," Masa grunted through a sob, closing her eyes tightly and concentrating. "I'm sorry I'm not strong enough. I'm sorry- I just- I'm _sorry_."

"You are strong," Sasuke whispered. "It's alright."

She sighed, relaxing slowly, and Sakura blinked against the sensation of light headedness as she reached forward and kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry we weren't strong enough for _you_," Sakura murmured. She sighed, reaching out for Sasuke's hand and wishing it was his skin. Masa stepped away from them as they began to flutter from existence. Sakura struggled to hold onto her consciousness for a little while longer. "I'm very tired of apologies, you know. How about you?"

He nodded, breathing deeply. "We'll get to rest soon."

"Good," Sakura replied. Her heart, very much the traitor, pulled a smile onto her lips. Her eyes found the canopy of leaves filtering sunlight over them as her vision went hazy. "It was good seeing you here too, Anata."

"Very good," he said, giving her hand one last squeeze before his own unraveled inside of her grip.

Sakura heard Masa crying deep, heaving sobs, feeling content because she felt the muscles in her grip, felt the callouses on her hands, felt her heart big enough for the world before everything around her disappeared and realized with quiet mirth that her daughter was a warrior of a girl.

Sakura knew she died a worthy dead, a kind death. Quick, simple. Honorable. Something that would be remembered because she was protecting her own. She'd died protecting Konoha. That was enough. There was nothing else she could have asked for. Shinobi have died in worse circumstances to less meaningful causes more than too often.

Staring at her daughter, pink-haired and teary eyed waving goodbye at them, she realized that there was much more to it than her own legacies.

_I think we did good,_ Sakura thought before the blackness consumed her.

.

.

.

Shikachi sighed loudly, walking forward as Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke fluttered into tiny strips of nothing, into the sun. He watched Masa fall to her knees and sob loudly, biting her fist and curling her into herself to try and stifle her pain. He felt himself being physically torn, ripped and cut and splintered as she cried her heart out, but it took him a long time to work up the courage to walk to her.

There was no way he could emphasize - this he knew. He knew it more deeply than the way she clung so hard to them as they faded away. He knew it when she bit her lip against speaking of them, the passing legends of Team Seven still raw in her throat because they would never be whole again, her family would never be whole again, and it pissed him off more than it made him sad.

There was no fixing _this_. Things were broken before he'd even come into the picture. There was nothing he could do short of tying their souls to corpses that no longer belonged here, and they probably wouldn't let him.

Shikachi finally walked forward, grass crunching loudly under his feet to keep from startling her, and crouched down beside her.

"I think we should skip border patrol today," he murmured, placing a hand on the back of her head and curling his large, calloused hand against the short curls. She hiccuped slightly, but stopped crying little by little. "You're looking kind of rough."

"I always look rough," the pink haired girl gasped out, covering her hands with her face before sliding them away, erasing the tears. "What did...what did you think of them?"

He paused for a moment, before deciding to be truthful. "Looking into your dad's eyes was probably the scariest thing I have ever done in my life," Shikachi said, refraining from a shiver as he remembered the unfamiliar patterned Sharingan that gave him no comfort like Masa's did. "And your mom. Dear god."

"You heard everything?"

"Obviously."

"Of course she would want to talk about _that_," she muttered, pushing off the ground to stand. Shikachi stood with her, stepping back and watching as she shoved her hair out of her eyes and adjusted her boots. "Let's go. I think I'll take that nap. If I'm lucky enough, I won't wake up."

"That's no fun. Who's gonna annoy the shit out of me if you don't wake up?" he said, voice raised in mock concern. He tossed his arm over her shoulder, let her lean into his side, and wondered when she was going to say something rude back. He had no patience for a sad Masa. It made him bitter that he couldn't fix it, make things right. So he did what he could, attempted picking up the pieces without getting himself cut. "I'll find you some instant ramen too. None of this lame healthy stuff they're serving in the cafeteria tent."

"I don't wanna steal _anything_ else from Naruto-ojisan. This was bad enough. What if he finds out?" she moaned, slapping a hand to her face as they walked out of the clearing.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Isn't he out on a mission?"

"I'll figure it out. Whatever you want, I got you." Shikachi pinched her shoulder as he reached over to plant a kiss at the crown of her head. "I told you I have a bad habit of spoiling you."


End file.
